England to play for bronze at World Cup
13th June 2014NETHERLANDS 1 (1)
ENGLAND 0 (0)
Mink van der Weerden 31 (PC)
The Netherlands hosted a thrilling World Cup Semi Final against England at the Kyocera Stadium this afternoon, with just a single goal proving to be enough to give the home crowd a victory. Led by an inspirational Barry Middleton, England threw everything they had at an impenetrable Dutch defence, but could not find a way through. After 70 minutes of play it was Mink van der Weerden’s 31st minute thunderous drag-flick which was the difference between the two sides.
England will now play for World Cup bronze on Sunday against either Argentina or Australia who play in the second semi final of the day.
After a good chance in the opening minute for England’s Ashley Jackson, Bobby Crutchley’s side was under pressure for most of the half as the Netherlands played their free attacking style of hockey. England created chances on the counter attack, but it was the hosts, through penalty corner specialist Mink van der Weerden, who took the goal advantage going into the break with a brilliant drag-flick on 31 minutes.
England came out fighting in the second half and both sides created chances from some great link-up play, but the Netherlands still had the upper hand with more circle penetrations and more shots on goal. England had a chance to equalise with a couple of penalty corners during the half, but the Dutch defence, led by their Captain Robert van der Horst, thwarted both Jackson’s and Gleghorne’s attempts.
At the other end of the field George Pinner had to be at his best to keep the Netherlands from scoring again; van der Weerden, Billy Bakker and Rogier Hofman all tested England’s defence. As the clock ticked down Crutchley’s side pushed up looking for the vital equaliser, but it wasn’t to be and as the final hooter went it was the fans in orange who celebrated their team’s 1-0 victory and the chance to play for gold on Sunday.
Quotes – England Head Coach Bobby Crutchley
On the performance today: “We knew we had to keep it tight. We had to stop the free-flowing Dutch hockey which I thought we did pretty well. To restrict such a talented team to one goal was down to some excellent defending and some real heart and hard work. In the first half we struggled to play enough hockey going the other way. With the ball we weren’t good enough, which is something I’ve said throughout the tournament, but it’s where this team is. If we’re going to compete at the top we have to be better with the ball.”
“I was worried after the first half that because we’d had to defend so much we’d run out of legs but in second half the boys played better hockey and came back into it. We knew we had to keep it tight but the fine margins are what decide these games. We got the corners and we felt we were building some pressure on the Dutch which was part of the game plan but we couldn’t quite make it count.”
Quotes – England Captain Barry Middleton
On looking ahead to Sunday’s bronze medal match: “It’s tough to pick yourself up after coming so close. We spoke about making the semi-finals when we came here and when we beat Belgium, a game we’d targeted as being a big one; we started to feel we wanted to win it. If you win a bronze medal then you can say you’ve done pretty well, but the nature of sport is that in general once you’re here you always want more. You want more than you get. It’ll be tough to bounce back.”
“We’ll have a good day tomorrow, take our rest and get this out of ourselves knowing that Sunday is still a big game for us. It can be one of the hardest things to do to get yourself out of a negative mind-set after being so close. We have a battling quality in the team and we’ll use that to try and achieve something. We haven’t won a medal at the World Cup in a long time so it’s still an aim to do that.”